The Sun Smells Too Loud
by piper maru duchovny
Summary: When Emma wakes up one morning with all her senses set in overdrive, daddy Charming is the one who helps pull her through. - s4 filler, Daddy Charming and his princess centric with mentions of Captain Swan and Mama Snow.
1. Chapter 1

**The title is taken from the Mogwai song of the same name. My courage to write this was inspired by AmtheDreamer's lovely oneshot for Emma and Snow based around her own experience with Misophonia. I highly, highly, highly recommend you go read that. This, however, is slightly different. First, this is a daddy!Charming and Emma fic that is, secondly, based around my own personal experience with Sensory Processing Disorder. There's a lot more to SPD than I included in this fic but, yes, it's true and I would say 90% of what Emma goes through in this fic are things I've gone through myself. (Once again, please go read Am's as well. Her story is unique and beautiful and deserves more attention than I could ever dream this one to be worthy of.)**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. Certainly A&E's. **

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><p><em>Sensory Processing Disorder<em> is a condition that exists when multisensory integration is not adequately processed in order to provide appropriate responses to the demands of the enviroment. - Wikipedia definition

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><p>"Damn it all to hell," Emma Swan swore as she slammed her fist down on top the dryer before bracing herself against the appliance to take a steadying breath. Tears pooled under her eyes but she willed them back – no, she would not cry today on top of everything else. She tried once more as she stuck her hand in the basket and rubbed her fingers over the jeans that were in there but jerked back immediately as a shiver chased down her spine. "Fucking awesome."<p>

"Emma," her father poised her name like a question as he stepped into the small laundry room. "What's wrong?"

"I..." She bit her lip and frowned, fighting off the urge to kick the dryer. No way could she tell her dad that she couldn't work that day because all her jeans felt funny. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure," David told her as he hopped up on the washer to sit in front of her, concern in his eyes. "What's up?"

"Can you work alone today?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Emma, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

"No..." Emma sighed and heavily considered lying but she knew her father would be able to tell. "Can't you just work alone today?" Or a few hours, she added in her brain. Long enough for her to rewash her clothes.

"I can," he told her. "But I still think you would feel better if you told me why I was working for you today."

"My clothes feel funny," she told him quietly. "Henry... He thought he was doing me a favor last night and he gathered up all my dirty clothes – which was literally everything I had – and washed them for me. I fell asleep before I could have a chance to check them. He must have used too much soap or dried them wrong or something. They feel funny."

David quirked an eyebrow and his lips turned up at the corner of his mouth. "You can't work today because your clothes feel funny? Princess..."

"Please don't tell me to suck it up," she begged.

"Emma?"

"They always told me to suck it up and I don't think I could really take it right now if you did too," she confessed as the first few tears began to fall.

"Emma," his voice softened and his mouth fell into a deep frown. "What is it?"

Her cold hands came up to the nape of her neck and pushed deeply as she willed the weight to calm her skittering nerves. "I need my blanket."

"I'll go get it," he told her before sliding off the washer and racing up the stairs.

Emma sank against the wall of the laundry room and pulled her knees to her chest as she pushed as hard as she could at the base of her skull. This hadn't been a problem in so long that she almost thought she had outgrown it or at least figured out how to handle it but it was really all just too much. She hadn't slept right and, when she had awaken that morning, everything had felt loud so when she'd found her jeans feeling too rough to wear she had wanted to crumple. If only the people of Storybrooke could see their savior now, brought to tears by clothes that didn't feel quite right – a spoiled little princess.

When he returned, David quickly handed over the blanket before he sat down across from her – close enough their feet touched but nothing too overstimulating as he waited her out. Emma rubbed the ribbon of her blanket between her fingers as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the wall, waiting for the sensations to pass.

"When I was a little kid, like three or four, not long after I went back into the system when the Swans gave me up," Emma explained quietly. "One of my foster parents noticed there was something off about me – if I was barefoot, I would walk around on my tiptoes and I hated to be touched unless I was the one who initiated it... If they put me in anything with lace or if they didn't cut the tags out of my shirts, I would scream bloody murder and cry. If my clothes felt a certain way, I would put them back in the dirty clothes and refuse to wear them. Crowded stores made me whiny and I would ride in the cart with my blanket over my head and fingers in my ears trying to muffle the noise."

"Em?"

She sighed. "They took me to a bunch of doctors before they finally figured out that I had... have... Sensory Processing Disorder. A rather mild case of it, all things considered, but I had to go through a bunch of behavioral and occupational therapy to help me get past it. And I did for the most part. I've gotten over my aversion to crowded stores and I don't walk on my tiptoes anymore. I mean, you're never going to find a ton of lace in my wardrobe but I can tolerate the way it feels now and tags don't always have to be cut out."

"But your clothes feel funny," David prompted.

"Yeah," Emma sighed. "Today, my clothes feel funny. Sometimes it flares up... When I'm tired or I'm stressed. And lately I've been a whole lot of both. Which is why I've been careful to make sure I'm the one who does my laundry lately and I've avoided things I know set me off but last night my kid tried to do a super nice thing for me."

"And it set you off," he riddled out. "Emma, why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you avoid things that trigger it."

"Because I was always told to get over it," she sniffled. "All my life they've told me to stop being a spoiled princess about it, to suck it up and deal, that it was all in my head and I was just a brat who wanted things just so."

"Emma, no." Charming reached out for her then and pulled her into a hug.

A shiver raced down Emma's spine and she reached for his hands, pushing them more deeply against her skin. "Firm touches," she explained. "I can't... No feather light stuff."

"Okay," he promised. "Firm touches. Is there anything else that sets you off?"

"Wind pants," Emma told him. "I was never more grateful than when that fad died out in the nineties... but that kind of fabric when it rubs together and makes that godawful noise... Ugh. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. Oh... My aversion to green beans and carrots? Not so much an aversion as the way they feel on my tongue when they're steamed."

"I'll make sure to mention those things to Snow," he promised her. "Emma, you are never going to be ridiculed for this, not here. And I'm sorry you were ever given any trouble over it anywhere. It's not your fault, you know?"

"I know," Emma sniffled against his shoulder. "The Enchanted Forest probably would have sucked for me as a kid, huh?"

"We would have figured it out," he promised. "You and I could have hid away during all those insipid balls. And you could have worn pants and tunics rather than dresses."

Emma snorted a laugh. "Mom would have loved that."

"Sure," he told her. "So long as it made you happy."

"Sometimes I do sensory seeking stuff," Emma explained. "Like with the blanket? It helps. Kind of like a counterpoint to all the stuff that sets me off. The ribbon on the blanket when I'm stressed, the top of my foot against the rough edge of the mattress when I'm sleepy. Leather and jeans feel good... That's why I wear them so much."

"Leather's heavy."

"Mhmm." She nodded against his shoulder. "The weight helps calm my nerves sometimes... T's why I was pushing on my neck earlier. Why I like firm touches. Hook's jacket... Like Hook's jacket a lot – that thing's so heavy I can hardly lift it sometimes."

David shook his head at the image of his little girl in her boyfriend's jacket. "I'll work for you today, Emma. Why don't you rewash your clothes and then head upstairs, get a few more hours of sleep and see if that helps reset your nerves? I'll talk to Snow and then I bet she'll come upstairs for some deep tissue snuggling and cocoa."

"Mama koala," she mumbled against his shoulder, realizing just how sleepy she still was.

Charming laughed. "That's a pretty good depiction."

"Thank you, daddy."

He kissed her head, making sure to press his lips hard against the crown of her head. "I love you, Emma."

Forty minutes later, Charming moved his daughter's clothes from the washer to the dryer and made sure to put it on the extra long setting like Emma had told him on her way up the stairs to fall back to sleep. He was about to head out the door to work but stepped upstairs to check on his family first and smiled at the sight he found; Emma fast asleep with her blanket snuggled to her front and her mother pressed firmly against her back with Neal sleeping in the portable crib at the foot of the bed while two cups of cocoa rapidly cooled on the dresser. He closed the door with a smile, certain that everything would be just fine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Several of you asked for a second chapter with Mama Snow so here that is. I apologize for any mistakes, I'm currently battling a severe case of bronchitis but I wanted to get this out to you guys without making you wait any longer. Thank you all for your kind reviews. **

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><p>Emma awoke abruptly to the sounds of her little brother's screams; she immediately brought her hands to her ears and curled into a ball as if to hide from the noise. Snow's hand lay on her back for a second as she murmured a quiet apology before scrambling across the bed to fetch her son from his portable crib. Thankfully the boy quieted quickly in his mother's embrace and Snow settled back against Emma's headboard with the little prince in her embrace as he fed; the mother switched her son to one arm and with her free one she brushed the hair back out of Emma's face. Now wide awake, Emma rolled over to face her mother but kept her body as compact as possible. "Hey there," Snow greeted her quietly. "How's the world feel?"<p>

"Not as loud," Emma replied softly. "Still not quite right but better than earlier."

She nodded as she pushed the hair back from her daughter's face. "Would a shower help, ya think?"

"No!" Emma pulled an awful face. "God, wet hair on my back. No. Not right now. I can't."

"It's okay," Snow told her softly. "It was just a suggestion. Is there anything I can do to help? Are you getting hungry?"

"This might sound weird," Emma's voice was soft, barely more than a whisper and nearly lost to the queen. "But... Never mind. It's too weird."

"Emma," Snow's voice carried a tone Emma had never heard in her direction; it carried the same kind of motherly desperation that was usually reserved for her brother during his three in the morning crying jags for no reason. "If I can help you, I will do it. No matter how weird it sounds. No matter how much you think it might bother me."

"When I was little," she explained. "I was on state funded insurance and it covered therapies and things I needed medically because I was a foster kid. One of the things one of my therapist gave me is this weighted blanket that helped calm me down. It got lost at some point during all the moving and my insurance wouldn't cover a new one because I was really okay without it by then. But I still... Weight helps. On my back."

"Okay."

"Do you think... After little bro is done eating... Do you think you could maybe lay across my back?" Emma cringed; it sounded so weird and she knew it. For years she had been told to just get over it, to deal with it, that she was a spoiled brat and she wasn't getting special attention just because her day felt off kilter. Worst of all was when she got told it was in her own head and the one family that had tried to correct it out of her.

"I can do that." Snow glanced down at her son to note that he was slowly falling back to sleep after spending most of the night wide awake with a crying jag that would not end. She glanced over at Emma and offered her daughter a warm smile while she took her in; she knew it was exhausting Emma to let her and Charming in but that it was vitally important that they know how to help her through these moments instead of their daughter pulling in on herself.

Once the little prince let go of his mother, fully ensconced in a post meal snooze, she edged him away from her body and quickly transferred him back to the crib at the end of his sister's bed before fastening her shirt up and glancing at Emma who had rolled onto her stomach and clutched her blanket close to her face. Snow sighed and quickly moved to cover her daughter's back with her torso, her chin coming to rest against Emma's shoulders and her cold fingers pressing to the nape of Emma's neck like David had said he'd seen her do earlier that morning.

"Emma," Snow spoke quietly in her ear. "My love, you've got nothing to be ashamed of. There is nothing in this world or any other that I would not do for you and your brother. Whatever you need that I can give you... name it and it's yours, understand?"

"Ma," she croaked with a voice laden with tears. So often the woman was guarded, not letting her emotions be exposed, but with her senses in overdrive and the safety of her mother's embrace she seemed to be opening up. "I... You believe it's real, right?"

"Of course I do," Snow told her. "Honey, once your dad told me about it... It was like all your little nuances clicked. You handle it so well but it explained some mannerisms that never quite added up before. Of course it's real, Emma, and we'll help you deal with it however we can."

"So many families... They thought I was making it up," she sniffled. "Thought it was all in my head or that I was looking for attention and they'd try to correct me for it."

The queen frowned deeply and she tightened her hold on Emma. "Corrected you?"

"Spankings and things of the sort," she explained.

"Emma, no..." Sometimes Snow White hated this world and the cruelty it had inflicted upon her daughter for just being who she was. "Emma... I am so sorry for whatever those people put you through but this is real and I know it, Emma. I believe you. This is real and you live with it every day. I know it's true."

"Thank you." The tears fell freely from Emma's eyes and she buried her face in her pillow; she didn't know if she was crying more for the memories of the way she had been treated or for having a mother who believed her and loved her and would do anything to keep her safe.

"I love you," Snow promised and pushed a kiss hard beneath Emma's ear.

Emma canted into the touch and breathed out slowly, trusting her mother's words. "I love you too, mama koala."

Snow laughed. "I suppose that fits."


End file.
